LOTTE LEHMANN FOUNDATION :: About

Linn Maxwell

President
Website: www.linnmaxwell.com

Linn Maxwell, a mezzo-soprano, has performed on the stages of major orchestras, opera companies and recital halls across the United States and 25 foreign countries. She has also performed cabaret and one-woman shows in New York City and in March 2006 made her European cabaret debut at the International Theater, Frankfurt, Germany. A native of Indiana, Ms. Maxwell has been a soloist with the orchestras of Toronto, Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, Oregon, Puerto Rico, San Antonio, Kansas, Rochester, Denver, Brooklyn, Minnesota and the Orchestra of the U.N.A.M of Mexico City.

In demand with oratorio and choral societies, Ms. Maxwell has appeared with the Bach festivals of Rochester, New York (for twelve seasons), Oregon (with Helmuth Rilling), Kalamazoo and Carmel. She is the founder of the Grand Rapids Bach Festival, past-president of Joy in Singing, and has appeared with the Oratorio Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center, the Pro Arte Chorale at Carnegie Hall, the Oratorio Society of Utah in a nationally televised performance of Handel’s Messiah from the Mormon Tabernacle, and on several occasions with Musica Sacra at New York’s Lincoln Center. In recent seasons she has sung the Mozart Requiem with the Sofia, Bulgaria Philharmonic, premiered Mary Cassatt by Libby Larsen with the Grand Rapids Symphony, performed a concert of Russian opera arias with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and premiered a song cycle by Patrick Kavanaugh at Washington’s Kennedy Center in 2002.

Ms. Maxwell began her career in Europe, spending two seasons at the Städtische Bühnen in Essen, Germany where she sang Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, also singing major roles with the opera companies of Strasbourg, Lyon, Toulouse, the Netherlands (where she sang Baroque operas with Nicholas Harnancourt and Rosina in Barbiere di Siviglia), Hungarian State Opera and concerts with the Berlin Radio Orchestra. Her opera engagements in the U.S. have included San Francisco Opera, again as Rosina, two appearances with Santa Fe Opera, and Tales of Hoffmann with Cincinnati Opera.

Ms. Maxwell is a graduate of the University of Maryland and holds a Master of Music degree from the Catholic University of America. She has recorded for RCA Red Seal, New World, Centaur and Albany Records.

Daniel Gundlach

Vice President
Website: www.danielgundlach.com

Daniel Gundlach has been hailed as a vivid singer and actor in his appearances throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. He has sung under James Conlon, Helmuth Rilling, Marc Minkowski, John Nelson, Daniel Beckwith, Jeffrey Thomas, Alain Altinoglu, James Richman, Johannes Somary, Philip Brunelle, Gwendolyn Toth, and the late Newell Jenkins, among others. His has sung with Chicago Lyric Opera, New York City Opera, Minnesota Opera, Skylight Opera, Edmonton Opera, the Broomhill Festival (UK), Les Musiciens du Louvre, and the Dallas Bach Society, the Clarion Music Society, Artek, Concert Royal, Amor Artis, the Dayton Philharmonic, and the Honolulu Symphony.

He has created leading roles in six contemporary operas, including the world premiere of Gualtiero Dazzi’s Le Luthier de Venise at the Théâtre du Châtelet and Pascal Dusapin’s Perelà, l’homme de fumée at the Opéra de Paris and at the Opéra de Montpellier. A live recording of these latter performances has been recently released on the Naïve Classics label.

A frequent recitalist, Mr. Gundlach has appeared on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago and on St. Bartholomew’s Concert Series and at the Donnell Library in New York, at Lawrence University, Northwestern University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Illinois in Urbana. He also was featured in American Chamber Opera’s staged production of Pierrot Lunaire, which used his own English translation. He will repeat his Pierrot with the Da Capo Chamber Players at Middlebury College in January, 2008. In the fall of 2006, he appeared in New York and Chicago with countertenor Mark Crayton in a series of recitals entitled "Conversations: New Music for Two Countertenors" featuring newly-commissioned work by eight different composers. He is currently developing a cabaret act entitled Those Who Carry Torches, which will be seen in New York City in fall 2008.

Russell Platt

Secretary

Russell Platt, noted composer of vocal and instrumental works, is also a senior editor for classical music at The New Yorker. Among his numerous awards are a 2001 Charles Ives Fellowship in Composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (he won the Ives Scholarship in 1990), an ASCAP Grant to Young Composers, and selection as an Alternate for the 2000 Aaron Copland House residency. While living in Minnesota (1991-2000) he received nearly all of the awards available to composers there, including a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and a McKnight Fellowship from the American Composers Forum, as well as two grants from the Forum's Composer Commissioning Program.

Born in 1965 in New York City, he earned a degree in music and history at Oberlin College, and continued his musical education at the Curtis Institute, Cambridge University (M.Phil. 1991), and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D. 1995); during that time his teachers included Dominick Argento, Alexander Goehr, Richard Hoffmann, Ned Rorem, and Judith Lang Zaimont. He was also a fellow of the advanced masterclasses of the Aspen Music Festival (1987, 1989), the Britten-Pears School (1992), and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (1995), led by the composers Bernard Rands, Jacob Druckman, Earl Kim, Oliver Knussen, and Joan Tower.

Russell Platt has received commissions from the Dale Warland Singers, the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, Present Music, Paul Sperry (three works, premiered at the Aspen Music Festival and by Sequitur and Friends & Enemies of New Music in New York), and Ensemble Capriccio, with further performances by Margo Garrett, the Minnesota Orchestra, Maria Jette, the Plymouth Ensemble Singers, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Ensembles; he makes his Ravinia début as a composer this summer. He has received multiple residencies from the nation's leading artist colonies, including Yaddo, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Ragdale Foundation, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Blue Mountain Center, in addition to two Composer Commissioning Grants from the American Composers Forum.

Platt's writing career grew rapidly after 1995. Before joining the staff of The New Yorker he wrote regularly for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, where he was lead music critic for the 1999-2000 season. He is a frequent contributor to such publications as Newsday, The Nation, Opera News, and the program booklets of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and has written liner notes for recordings on the Arabesque, Argo, Arsis, CRI, Koch, and Virgin Classics labels.

Larry Alan Smith

Treasurer
Website: www.larryalansmith.com

Praised by the New York Times as "a young composer of great gifts", Larry Alan Smith has developed an international reputation as a composer, performer, educator and arts executive. Many of today’s outstanding soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras have performed and commissioned works by Larry Alan Smith. Upon hearing the world premiere of his one-act opera, Aria da Capo, the well-known Chicago-based critic, Claudia Cassidy, reported: "This is remarkable opera theatre…Smith has an ear for flaring brilliance… All this seems to me a true talent, primarily because I want to hear Aria da Capo again."

He began his earliest musical training in Ohio, and pursued his studies in France with Nadia Boulanger and at The Juilliard School with Vincent Persichetti. While earning his B.M., M.M. and D.M.A. degrees at Juilliard, he was the recipient of several prizes, including the Joseph Machlis Prize for outstanding distinction in composition. During his final year of study, Dr. Smith was appointed to the Faculty of the Juilliard School where he taught from 1980-86. Previously, he was on the Composition Faculty of the Boston Conservatory.

Larry Alan Smith is represented and published by the Theodore Presser Company. His works are also published by Bourne Music, E.B. Marks, Colla Voce Music, and Tallow Tree Music Publishing; and his vocal works are distributed by Classical Vocal Reprints. Dr. Smith is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and he serves on a number of regional and national boards. He was recently awarded the 2006 Forrest Goodenough Fellowship for Composers and Songwriters from the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

In addition to his primary life as a composer, Dr. Smith also maintains an active performing schedule. He has guest conducted numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles in England, Brazil, Italy, Germany and the United States. Dr. Smith is also an experienced pianist who frequently performs his own works.

As an arts executive, he served as the President of the School of American Ballet from 1997-2000, Dean of the Hartt School at the University of Hartford from 1990-97 and Dean of the School of Music at the North Carolina School of the Arts from 1986-90. He is currently Professor of Composition at the Hartt School, Artistic and Executive Director of Wintergreen Performing Arts in Wintergreen, VA and Artistic Director of American SongFest in Woodstock, New York, a component of Woodstock Fringe.

Larry Alan Smith is a Group XI Fellow of the Kellogg National Fellowship Program, a program of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation designed to expand the nation’s pool of capable leaders. He is the President of Berg Associates, Inc., a Connecticut corporation providing consulting services to arts organizations and other businesses; and he serves as a Senior Consultant for Arts Consulting Group, Inc., working out of the firm’s New York and Boston offices.

Dr. Smith is also a prolific poet who resides in Avon, Connecticut with his wife, pianist Marguerita Oundjian Smith, and their sons, Jamie, Christopher, Benjamin and William.

Gilda Lyons

Executive Director
Website: http://www.gildalyons.com

Gilda Lyons is active both as composer and vocalist. She received The ASCAP Foundation's Charles Kingsford Fund Commission for a new work scheduled for premiere in the 2008/09 season. New works in 2007/08 include: Nahuatl Hymn to the All-Mother for treble choir, commissioned by The Milwaukee Choral Artists on the occasion of their Tenth Anniversary for premiere on 16 February 2008 to be recorded for release in fall 2008; and Phantoms and Visitations, Ghost Stories for Voice and Piano, commissioned by Paul Sperry for premiere on 5 October 2007 on The Phoenix Concerts series, NYC: Paul Sperry, tenor; Jocelyn Dueck, piano. The 06/07 season included workshop performances of her one-act opera, The Walled-Up Wife, presented by American Opera Projects and commissions including new works for Amy Pivar Dances; the voice and piano duo Two Sides Sounding; the string quartet Sweet Plantain; and countertenors Daniel Gundlach and Mark Crayton. Gilda Lyons is the Artistic Director of The Phoenix Concerts series on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Her music is published by E.C. Schirmer. As vocalist, Ms. Lyons performs regularly with Elaine Valby and Robert La Rue as the voice and cello trio Seraphim; the trio has commissioned new works by composers Hayes Biggs, Daron Hagen, and Paula Kimper, Slavko Krstic, Eric Moe, and Faye-Ellen Silverman. In 2007, Ms. Lyons sang the role of Nora Barnacle in Daron Hagen's The Antient Concert, the centerpiece of Symphony Space's Bloomsday on Broadway XXVI; she appeared as soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic in their semi-staged concert production of Hagen’s opera Shining Brow in fall 2006. Ms. Lyons made her professional debut as composer and vocalist with the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra in 1997, performing the world premiere of her orchestral song cycle Feis. She received her Ph.D. in Music Composition from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and Bard College. Ms. Lyons has studied composition with Anne LeBaron, Eric Moe, Daria Semegen, Joan Tower and Roger Zahab; conducting with Roger Zahab; and voice with Arthur Burrows, Barry Busse and Elaine Valby.

Elizabeth Auman

Website: http://www.loc.gov/index.html

Elizabeth Auman is a music historian, archivist, acquisitions specialist, fund-raiser, concert and recording producer, appraiser, librarian and musician who has worked in the Library of Congress's Music Division for 38 years. Her focus f or most of those years has been on acquisitions—especially those of special collections—multi-format materials representing the complete lives and works of those whose materials they are. She has worked with many of the major figures in American music.

During her tenure at the Library, she has been instrumental in building a world-class music collection there; has been acquisitions and archival consultant to numerous private collections; has acted as a trusted advisor to the families and Estates of many noted composers, arrangers, orchestrators, and performers. She is a noted specialist in American musical theater (Grammy producer nominations for two restored Gershwin shows), American art song (Grammy producer nomination for Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen), the Romantic era (particularly Brahms and Liszt), and the Renaissance (Italian and English vocal/chamber music and their interrelationships).

She has been on the faculty of The Catholic University of America. She is also a free-lance consultant on and appraiser of performing arts-related archives. In her spare time, she loves to read, garden, play with her cats, and spend time on her property near Green River, Utah.

Robert Bullington

Website: www.bullington.org

Robert Bullington brings a unique blend of technical knowledge and musical experience to the board of the Lehmann Foundation. Robert earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Loyola University in New Orleans, where he studied with Phillip Frohnmayer. In 1987, he attended the Phyllis Curtin seminar for singers at Tanglewood and moved to Boston to earn his Masters of Music at Boston University, studying voice with Ms. Curtin. During his graduate studies, Robert used his skills in Information Technology to "support his singing", a practice he has continued to this day. Robert has extensive experience as an interpreter of the songs of Faure, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Wolf, Butterworth, Finzi and Vaughan Williams, and continues to hone his skills under the tutelage of Elem Eley and Dalton Baldwin.

In 1992, Robert embarked on a six week study tour to Vienna, ostensibly to study the German Language. During the next six years, Robert toured with the Vienna Teachers Acapella Choir and was an active participant in Vienna's "Hauskonzert" culture. He also held several Information Technology positions with the United Nations Organizations. In his last position, Robert was responsible for network security systems in the International Atomic Energy Agency's Department of Safeguards.

In 1999, Robert finally returned to the United States, settling in New Jersey. Robert has held positions with Bluestone Consulting Incorporated, the New York Life Insurance Company and Lehman Brothers Holdings Incorporated, where he serves as an Assistant Vice President in Information Security. He was recently awarded the Certified Information Systems Security Professional rating by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium.

Robert is a performing member of the Music Club of Princeton and the Belle Meade Friends of Music. He especially enjoys performing the works of Princeton-area composer, Olga Gorelli and has premiered several of her works. He makes frequent concert appearances with organizations that include the Princeton Society of Musical Amateurs and the Valley Forge Choir of Men and Boys.

Lindsey Christiansen

Website: www.rider.edu/westminster/faculty/christiansen.html

Professor of voice and chair of the voice and piano departments of Westminster Choir College. Mezzo-soprano. BA (music history), University of Richmond; MM (voice and organ), University of Illinois. Woodrow Wilson Fellow and University of Illinois Fellow. Studied in the Opera School of the Hochschule für Musik, Hamburg, as International Rotary Foundation Fellow (1974-75). Member of Phi Beta Kappa, Morterboard, Phi Alpha Theta, Pi Kappa Lambda. Fellow of the Bach Aria Festival and Institute (1989).

A Distinguished Alumna of the University of Richmond (1992), Aston Magna Participant (1993). Solo orchestral appearances with Greensboro Symphony, Roanoke Symphony, Colonial Orchestra, Philadelphia Concerto Soloists, Princeton Pro Musica, Pro Arte Choral. Artist-in-residence for the Franz-Schubert-Institut, Baden bei Wien, Austria (1995, 1997). Recitalist, specializing in German lieder throughout the United States and Germany. Clinician and lecturer in art song literature and voice pedagogy. Faculty, University of Illinois; University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Westminster (1977-).

A music history graduate of the University of Richmond, mezzo-soprano Lindsey Christiansen earned graduate degrees in voice and organ from the University of Illinois, where she was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a University of Illinois Fellow. She did further study at the Opera School of the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, Germany, as an International Rotary Foundation Fellow. She was twice named a Fellow at the Bach Aria Festival and Institute in Stony Brook, N.Y.

She has taught on the music faculties of the University of Illinois, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Westminster Choir College of Rider University, where she is Professor of Voice and former Chair of the Voice Department.

Ms. Christiansen is a life-long student and lover of the music of Franz Schubert. She was a participant in the Aston Magna Academy on "Schubert's World" and later presented a paper on Schubert and Friedrich Schlegel for the Northeast Modern Language Association. At Westminster she organized and coordinated a festival/symposium on the music of Schubert. She has twice been artist-in-residence for voice study for the prestigious Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien, Austria.

She has won acclaim as a recitalist specializing in German lieder in many cities in the United States and Germany. Her solo orchestral appearances under such conductors as Joseph Flummerfelt and Robert Shaw include collaborations with the Richmond Symphony, Roanoke Symphony, Greensboro Symphony, New Jersey Pops Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Concerto Soloists, among others. She was recently the alto soloist in a Richmond Symphony performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion.

A member of the American Academy of Teachers of Singing and the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), Ms. Christiansen is active as a clinician for master classes in voice pedagogy and voice literature. In addition to presenting at their national conventions, she has twice been a master teacher for the NATS internship program for young teachers. She has collaborated several times in presenting seminars in art song literature with the acclaimed coach/accompanist Martin Katz.

Her students and former students are singing in opera houses all over the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Central City Opera, La Scala, Paris Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, Vienna Staatsoper, etc. They have been prize-winners in major competitions including the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Mario Lanza Competition, Marion Anderson Competition, National Opera Association, New York Oratorio Society, Philadelphia Orchestra Competition, Whittaker Competition, etc.

Phyllis Curtin

The esteemed American soprano and teacher Phyllis Curtin studied at Wellesley College (B.A., 1943) and received vocal instruction from Olga Avierino, Joseph Regnaeas, and Goldovsky.

In 1946 Phyllis Curtin made her operatic debut as the Countess in Figaro with Goldovsky's New England Opera Theater. Her recital debut followed in 1950 at New York’s Town Hall. In October 1953 she made her first appearance with the New York City Opera, as Fräulein Burstner in Gottfried von Einem's The Trial; where she remained on the roster until 1960; then returned in 1962, 1964, and 1975-76. She also made appearances at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1959), the Glyndebourne Festival (1959), the Vienna State Opera (1960-1961), and at La Scala in Milan (1962). In November 1961 she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York as Fiordiligi; she sang every season at the MET from 1961 to 1973. Her tours as a soloist with orchestras and as a recitalist took her all over the globe until her retirement in 1984.

Phyllis Curtin taught at the Aspen School of Music; she continues to teach at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood — next year will be her 42nd season on the faculty. She taught in the Beijing Conservatory for a month in 1988, and in the Moscow Conservatory for three weeks in 1989. After serving as professor of voice at the Yale University School of Music (1974-1983), she was professor of voice and Dean of the School of the Arts at Boston University (from 1983); in 1992 she retired as its dean but continues to teach there.

Phyllis Curtin became well known for such roles as Mozart's Countess, Donna Anna, Rosalinde, Eva, Violetta, Alice Ford, Salome, and Ellen Orford. She also created Floyd’s Susannah (1955) and Cathy in Wuthbering Heights (1958).

Stephen Dembski

Website: www.scattershot.org/dembski/

Mr. Dembski studied piano from an early age, and was reading music long before he could read words. Warned against the clarinet on account of the braces on his teeth, and against the trombone because of the length of his arms, he took up the flute in elementary school. Later, he learned musical illiteracy: in high school and after, both in America and in England, he performed folk and traditional musics on the guitar, banjo, harmonica, and washtub bass, and played a lot of rock and roll, all "by ear." While still enrolled in college, he played flute professionally in Europe for a time, worked in a small band called Kiss that played mostly prisons in Ohio, and in a big band led by Cecil Taylor.

By his early twenties, he was composing music back in the old Euro-American tradition, and eventually earned degrees in it from Antioch, SUNY-Stony Brook, and Princeton. His music -- which includes instrumental, vocal, and electro-acoustic works as well as pieces for improvising musicians and for interactive installations of sound and light -- has been broadly recognized by awards and performances in both the United States and in Europe.

At home, his honors include three commission-fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a fellowship from the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation, and the Goddard Lieberson Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; his Euro-American concert music has represented the United States at international festivals in France, Germany, Denmark, Poland, and England.

In 1990, his orchestral setting of Wallace Stevens'last poem was recognized by the Premio Musicale Citta di Trieste (Italy) and recorded for compact disc by the Polish Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra. Other CD's include one on CRI and another on Music & Arts, both devoted solely to his music, a recording of his On Ondine released in 2001 in Italy, and a forthcoming recording of Gregory Fulkerson's performance of his violin sonata.

Dembski's music has been commissioned, performed, and recorded by such organizations as the American Composers'Orchestra, the Silesian Philharmonic of Poland, The Prism Orchestra, the 20th Century Consort, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Pro Arte Quartet, as well as by soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson, pianists Alan Feinberg and Ursula Oppens, violinist Rolf Shulte, and cellist Fred Sherry. Bernard Holland, writing in The New York Times, described his work in terms of "the sensuous, ecstatic quality of late Romanticism.

As a flutist, Dembski was featured on the French radio, and played in a variety of European ensembles including the Paris-based l'Orchestre des Grands Concerts de la Sorbonne led by former Schoenberg pupil Max Deutsch.

Now as both composer and improvising conductor, he is increasingly involved in working with musicians who come out of jazz, and appears on five CD's with the Scott Fields Ensemble.

In connection with his work in compositional theory, he has designed a software package called Circles for composers'manipulation of a generalized framework of scalar and harmonic materials. He has also designed a software-hardware system called VIDI which transforms 3-D video information into MIDI information according to composer-defined criteria, to enable a non-intrusive interactive installation of sources of sound and light.

Among other projects, he's currently working on a piece, for percussionist Daniel Druckman, to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the New York New Music Ensemble, a CD-length composition for five improvising musicians of the Scott Fields Ensemble, and an operatic setting of a libretto, Crow Soup, written for him by the renowned surrealist artist and novelist Leonora Carrington with her son, Gabriel.

Scott Dunn

Website: www.scott-dunn.com

Born in rural Iowa, Scott Dunn is a distinguished conductor and pianist who made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 with Dennis Russell Davies and the American Composers Orchestra playing the world premiere of his own orchestration of Vernon Duke's lost "Piano Concerto in C". He has since appeared repeatedly in major venues and with major orchestras throughout the US and Europe. From 1999-2001 he served as associate music director to Maestro Lukas Foss for the Music Festival of the Hamptons where he earned considerable raves from the press "he is a conductor of great promise, a pianist of note, and a sensitive and intelligent artist. All of these elements came together to give the audience an experience closer to heaven than most of us will get in this lifetime& & I cannot praise Mr. Dunn's conducting too highly."

In 2001-2002 he made his first European orchestral conducting engagements and in 2002, Maestro John Mauceri appointed Dunn conducting assistant for his Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in Los Angeles. In 2003, Dunn also served as music director for La Fabbrica a California based opera company with summer productions in Tuscany, where he led multiple performances of Puccini's "La Boheme", Weill's "Kleine Mahagonny" and a new work by young American composer Ricky Ian Gordon. For 2004 Dunn returns to Italy to lead the Rome Sinfonietta in a concert dedicated to the music of American composer Leonard Rosenman.

A sought-after vocal collaborator, Dunn makes frequent concert appearances with noted singers Kurt Ollmann, Joyce Castle and Angelina Reaux. Of a recent appearance with Angelina Reaux the press raved: "Not every good pianist can be a good accompanist. Scott Dunn is a superb pianist and he was extraordinary in his phrase by phrase attentiveness and his clear understanding of the singer's art." Of his 2002 world premiere with Kurt Ollmann of Ned Rorem's song cycle "Another Sleep" at Lincoln Center the New York Times wrote "It was in fact the piano so expressively played by Scott Dunn that set out and sustained each song's compass." Dunn has also appeared with such other noted vocalists as Marni Nixon, Gino Quillico, Chris Pedro Trakas, Joanna Simon and Lucy Shelton and he has toured Europe with the Martha Graham Dance company.

He frequently collaborates in two-piano team with Sir Richard Rodney Bennett and together they were prominently featured in a well-received 2003-2004 Lincoln Center concert series by the New York Performing Arts Library devoted to the centenary of composer Vernon Duke.

As a piano soloist, Dunn's Carnegie Hall debut with Dennis Russell Davies and the American Composers Orchestra took place as part of the Gershwin Centenary concerts of the 1998-1999 concert season. He performed Vernon Duke's ? lost ? "Piano Concerto in C" - a work written in 1923 for Arthur Rubinstein, but published only in two-piano score. Working from the two-piano version, Dunn orchestrated the entire concerto in 1998 for its successful 1999 premiere. Dunn made a second Carnegie Hall solo appearance in 2001, again with Davies and the ACO, performing "The Spellbound Concerto" of Rosza. In recent times, he has also appeared with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, The Saint Louis Symphony, and the Eos Orchestra among others and has worked with such noted conductors as Marin Alsop, Dennis Russell Davies, Lukas Foss, Harold Farberman, and John Mauceri.

As a solo recitalist, Dunn is a noted and prize-winning advocate of contemporary music. Of a 2004 solo Los Angeles recital critic Alan Rich recently wrote "In a time when we are beset with young emergent performers of limited repertory delivered with unlimited flamboyance, the splendid pianist Scott Dunn's varied and visionary program was remarkable ". Dunn has toured Europe and former states of the Soviet Union for the USIS ? introducing many of those locales to such classics of American piano literature as the Elliott Carter Piano Sonata and the Concord Sonata of Charles Ives. Dunn has premiered or recorded for commercial release works by such prominent composers as Irwin Bazelon, Richard Rodney Bennett, Lukas Foss, Ricky Ian Gordon, Peter Lieberson, Roger Reynolds, Ned Rorem, and James Sellars among others. His solo recordings are currently available on the Naxos, Albany, CRI, Neuma, and illia labels. Dunn's new solo recording of the complete piano works of Lukas Foss is scheduled for a 2004 release by Naxos. His 2003 recording of Irwin Bazelon's "Sunday Silence" has just been released on the Albany label.

Dunn, who began in musical studies at age seven, holds degrees from the University of Iowa, the University of Southern California and the Manhattan School of Music where he studied conducting, composition and piano performance and was awarded Cohn Prize for chamber music. He was also a full scholarship student at Aspen Music Festival and School, and for two years worked as a Fellow in the Aspen Vocal Chamber Program. His conducting teachers have included Daniel Lewis, Harold Farberman, and Vincent La Selva. His piano instructors have included the legendary pianists Byron Janis and Brooks Smith as well as Joseph Kalichstein, John Simms, and Daniel Pollack. He studied composition with Leonard Rosenman and Ludmila Ulehla, and received private instruction in orchestration from Richard Rodney Bennett.

Once reluctant to pursue a professional music career, Dunn for eight years quit performing publicly and completed medical school, internship, residency and board certification in ophthalmology. Shortly thereafter in 1991, Dunn returned to the stage for a well received solo recital in Los Angeles. "Gifted indeed — an abundance of technique and musicality" exclaimed the LA Times. Encouraged, Dunn followed his heart, left medical practice and moved to New York, where he has established a distinguished reputation and professional career.

Dunn resides in New York and Los Angeles.

Margo Garrett

Born in Raleigh, NC, Ms. Garrett studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts and did her graduate studies at Manhattan School of Music. Her piano studies included work with Irwin Freundlich and Samuel Sanders. She also studied with Pierre Bernac.

Margo Garrett collaborates with such vocal artists as Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney, Beverly Hoch, Lucy Shelton, Dawn Upshaw, Benita Valente, and the late Judith Raskin. Active in the world of contemporary music, she has performed the premieres of more than 30 works.

Ms. Garrett's recordings include RCA, Nonesuch, MusicMasters, Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon (1992 Grammy), and Dorian.

She was formerly co-director, with the late Samuel Sanders, of the Cape and Islands Chamber Music Festival; and director of the Tanglewood Music Centers Vocal Program. She was also on the faculty of the New England Conservatory. Currently she is chair of accompanying and coaching at the University of Minnesota; chair of the vocal faculty at the Chicago Symphony's Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia.

Margo Garrett joined The Juilliard School faculty in 1985, became chair of accompanying program, 1986-1991 and rejoined the faculty in 2000.

Daron Hagen

Past-President
Website: www.daronhagen.com

DDaron Hagen (b. 1961, Milwaukee) established his national reputation in the early eighties with performances by the New York Philharmonic (Philharmonia, commissioned to celebrate the orchestra's 150th anniversary in 1992), and the Philadelphia Orchestra; international recognition and acclaim followed with the première of his first major opera, Shining Brow (1992). A steady stream of commissions from major orchestras, ensembles, and soloists over the past quarter century have cemented Hagen's reputation as one of America's most respected and sought-after composers.

Current projects include an opera for the Seattle Opera; a fourth symphony (with chorus) for the Albany Symphony; and a violin concerto for Michael Ludwig, the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Virginia Symphony. Recent projects include concerti for Gary Graffman, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Jeffrey Khaner, Sara Sant'Ambrogio, the Amelia Piano Trio, and works for Present Music, Wisconsin Brass Quintet, the Kings Singers, and the Amernet, Carpentier and Elements String Quartets.

Mr. Hagen is active also as a conductor, pianist, and stage director. He made his debut as a stage director with the Buffalo Philharmonic (2006), and has since staged three of his operas in major venues. He has released two discs as a collaborative pianist with baritone Paul Kreider on the Arsis label. The recording of his opera Bandanna under his baton (Albany Troy 849/50) was chosen by Fanfare Magazine as one of the ten notable releases of 2006 and chosen as an "ArkivMusic Recommendation". Naxos will release the complete recording of his opera Shining Brow and his four piano trios (the Finesterra Trio) in 2008.

A Lifetime Member of the Corporation of Yaddo and past president of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation, Mr. Hagen is a graduate of the Juilliard School and of the Curtis Institute of Music. He has received the Kennedy Center Friedheim, the Bearns, Barlow, and ASCAP-Nissim Prizes, two Rockefeller Bellagio Residencies, the Camargo Residency, multiple residencies at VCCA and MacDowell, as well as scholarships and development grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and Opera America. His music is published by Carl Fischer, EC Schirmer, and Burning Sled. Recordings are available on Albany, Arsis, Sierra, CRI, and other labels.

Mr. Hagen maintains a vigorous private teaching schedule and gives numerous master classes and residencies at colleges and music festivals. Hagen will serve as composer-in-residence during the 2009 season for the Seasons, Wintergreen, and Methow music festivals, among others. Hagen is a frequent grants panelist and has served twice as Composer in Residence for the Princeton University Atelier; Composer in Residence at the Chicago Conservatory of Music of the Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, as Franz Lehar Composer in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh; as Artist in Residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Sigma-Chi-William P. Huffman Composer in Residence at Miami University; Artist in Residence at Baylor University; on the musical studies faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music; nine years on the composition faculty of Bard College; as a Visiting Professor at the City College of New York; and as a Lecturer in Music at New York University.

A New Yorker since 1984, Mr. Hagen lives with his wife, the composer Gilda Lyons, and his son Atticus.

Robert Helfand

Website: www.thehartford.com

Robert Helfand is an attorney who practiced law in New York City for 20 years before becoming Assistant Vice President and Senior Counsel at The Hartford Insurance Group. Mr. Helfand was graduated Summa cum laude from Princeton University, where he performed with of the Princeton University Orchestra and Princeton Opera Theater, and he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar at the Columbia University School of Law. Before joining The Hartford, Mr. Helfand was a member of the firm of Eaton & Van Winkle LLP. He was member of the Board of Trustees of Composers Recordings, Inc., for more than ten years. Mr. Helfand now lives in Simsbury, Connecticut, with his wife, the playwright Rachelle Minkoff, and his son, Raphael.

Speight Jenkins

Website: www.seattleopera.org

Speight Jenkins is General Director of the Seattle Opera. After more than twenty years in this position, Mr. Jenkins has seen his company attain international recognition.

In 2003 the Seattle Opera began performing in Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, a $127 million reconstruction of the former Seattle Opera House. The company, the eighth largest in the United States, gives more than 45 performances each year and is well known for its Wagner productions.

Jenkins'extensive knowledge of opera repertoire is demonstrated by frequent appearances on Chevron/Texaco's Opera Quiz on the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. Personally acquainted with the best singers of our time, many of them active in art song performance, Mr. Jenkins stands as one of the most knowledgeable people in the world of classical vocal performance.

Peter Kazaras

Website: www.pinnaclearts.com/artist.php?id=297

Peter Kazaras, Tenor, Stage Director, Vocal and Dramatic Coach continues to demonstrate his versatility and unique artistry by recently singing the leading role of the Rabbi in a semi-staged concert version of Kurt Weill's The Eternal Road for the American Symphony Orchestra, performed for the first time in New York since the work's premiere in 1935. This was followed by his first appearances as the Schoolmaster in Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen, at the New York City Opera.

In recent years he has sung his trademark role of Captain Vere in Billy Budd for performances in Kansas City, sung Britten's Serenade with the Dayton Philharmonic, performed Loge in a new production of Das Rheingold in Geneva, and appeared at Santa Fe as the Chaplain in Francesca Zambello's production of Dialogues of the Carmelites.

Other activities have included producing and directing a workshop production of a new opera by Jonathan Sheffer based on Gertrude Stein's Blood on the Dining Room Floor. For Maestro Sheffer's Eos Orchestra, he also staged the world premiere of Dracula, the new solo performance piece by David del Tredici, about the woman who has the good fortune to live next to Count Dracula.

At the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Kazaras has appeared frequently with James Levine (as Tamino, Arbace, and Almaviva in the world premiere of Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles telecast worldwide, the Circus Barker in Bartered Bride) and has also sung Captain Vere, Steva, Shuisky, Narraboth and Tchekalinsky (Queen of Spades, conducted by Valery Gergiev).

A favorite of contemporary composers, he created the principal tenor roles in the world premieres of Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place (Houston, La Scala, Kennedy Center, Staatsoper Wien-European telecast and DG recording); Sir Michael Tippett's New Year (Houston); and Hans Zender's Don Quixote de la Mancha (Staatstheater Stuttgart).

Other European appearances have included Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, where he performed the leading tenor role of Thusmann in a new production of Busoni's Die Brautwahl conducted by Daniel Barenboim in his inaugural season and directed by Nicholas Brieger; Gustav von Aschenbach in the Viennese premiere of Britten's Death in Venice at the Wiener Operntheater; L'Opera de Nice for the role of Paris in La Belle Helene; Holland Festival (Il Regista in Berio's Un Re in Ascolto); and Spoleto Festival for the world premiere of Paul Uy's Sarah.

A specialist in the music of Benjamin Britten, his performances as Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, Captain Vere in Billy Budd, Gustav von Aschenbach in Death in Venice and The Madwoman in Curlew River have taken him from the United States to Europe and Israel (Vienna, New York, Houston, St. Louis, San Francisco, Miami, Seattle, Omaha, Spoleto Festival USA and with New Israeli Opera Tel Aviv and on tour in Frankfurt.) Other orchestral engagements have included the War Requiem, the Serenade, the recently rediscovered Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal and the Nocturne. The music of Leos Janacek has also been a specialty of his. In addition to his appearances in Cunning Little Vixen, he was chosen for the role of Boris in a new production of Katya Kabanova for the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts in Wellington, where he also sang the tenor soloist in Msa Glagolskaja.

In 1996, he scored a major success as Mr. Broucek in the American stage premiere of The Excursions of Mr. Broucek for the Spoleto Festival USA at Charleston, South Carolina. He appeared as Steva in Jenufa at the Metropolitan Opera, in Seattle and in a now legendary concert performance with Gabriela Benackova and Leonie Rysanek at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Eve Queler (CD available on BIS). He also performed Laca in Jenufa for Edmonton Opera, and scored a personal triumph in staged performances of Diary of One Who Vanished for the Opera/Omaha Fall Festival.

A frequent guest in Seattle, other appearances there have included Pierre Bezukhov in the spectacular Francesca Zambello/Mark Ermler production of Prokofiev's War and Peace, Erik in Der Fliegende Holländer, Faust, Tamino, Hoffmann, Steva, Edgardo, Froh and most recently a tremendous personal and critical success as Loge in Das Rheingold for the 1995 RING Cycles. Other engagements in Seattle include Loge in the RING cycle to be directed by Stephen Wadsworth in 2000 and 2001, Captain Vere, Shuisky and his first performances as the Witch in Hansel and Gretel. Other notable North American engagements include Tito in a new production of La Clemenza di Tito for Houston Grand Opera (Stephen Wadsworth/John DeMain) and the American premiere of Zimmermann's Weisse Rose for the Opera/Omaha Fall Festival.

Concert highlights over the years have included nationwide broadcasts of Songfest with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl; Mahler's Eighth Symphony opening the Calgary Arts Center; the Mozart Requiem with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia (Levine); Handel oratorios and operas including Messiah, Acis and Galateaand Theodra; the Mostly Mozart Festival with Gerard Schwarz in Avery Fisher Hall; Das Lied von der Erde with the Houston Ballet; operas in concert in Carnegie Hall including Baron Lummer in Intermezzo with Elisabeth Soederstroem, roles in Die Liebe der Danae (Merkur) Guntrum (Der Narr), Khovantschina (Golitstin) for Eve Queler and Opera Orchestra of New York.

A native New Yorker, Peter Kazaras is a graduate of Harvard College and resides in Manhattan. In addition to singing and directing, he also coaches singers and actors privately in performance technique.

In addition to enjoying a worldwide career as an operatic tenor, Peter Kazaras has recently worked as director, coach and artistic advisor. In the winter of 2003 he directed Bellini's Norma for Seattle Opera. Other credits include Spoleto USA Britten's Curlew River, Artistic Advisor and singing The Madwoman; Eos Orchestra (concert staging and lighting for Act III of Adams' Nixon in China at Alice Tully Hall, singing Mao; staging of Stravinsky's Pulcinella; staging concert reading of excerpts from Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights); New York Festival of Song (staging a program of Operetta excerpts); Milwaukee Symphony (Britten's War Requiem, staging, lighting design, Tenor soloist); Chautauqua Institute Music School (staging three casts in Britten's The Turn Of The Screw); and staging the original 1998 workshop of Jonathan Sheffer's Blood On The Dining Room Floor (which led to an off-Broadway production).

He has also given Master Classes at Yale and Vassar, where he co-directed the Opera Workshop.

Andreas Klein

Website: www.AndreasKlein.com

German-born Andreas Klein enjoys two career paths: as an internationally acclaimed pianist and as a sought after audio producer/recording engineer. As soloist he has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Halle Symphony, Houston Symphony and orchestras in Knoxville, Evansville, Green Bay and toured with the Lucerne Festival Strings and the Salzburg Chamber Soloists throughout the US and Mexico. He has presented recitals at the world's most prestigious venues: London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin's Philharmonic Hall, New York's Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, Mechanics Hall, MA, and in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Houston, Seattle, Cleveland, Rome, Milan, Bern, Leipzig, Dresden, Damascus, and Yerevan.

Andreas Klein is heard frequently on National Public Radio's Performance Today, on numerous syndicated and local radio programs including three times as featured guest live on WGBH Boston and KUHF Houston. To attract and introduce television audiences to classical music, he created a series of short works by composers such as Chopin, Debussy and Stravinsky called Intermezzo with Andreas Klein, which was seen on PBS television stations nationwide. His teachers include Claudio Arrau, Nikita Magaloff, and John Perry. He holds a post-graduate diploma degree from Juilliard and a DMA from Rice University.

As audio engineer and producer for classical music since 1987, he held positions of "Director for Audio Recordings" at the Brevard Music Festival, NC, and at the Peninsula Music Festival, WI, where he recorded for NPR affiliate radio station numerous orchestral concerts, some with soloists such as Joshua Bell, Midori, Lynn Harrell, Andre Watts and many more. Andreas Klein has produced, recorded, edited, and mastered his own piano CD, published by Eroica Classical. Most recently he became audio consultant for the new Performing Arts Center at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY, and produced a CD for the St. Petersburg String Quartet in Ohio.

Sara Kohane

Website: http://www.yale.edu/yalemus/people/visiting_faculty.html#Kohane

Sara Kohane holds a BM in piano performance from the University of Michigan and a MM in vocal accompaniment from Boston University, where she was twice the recipient of the Dean’s Scholar award. Her solo and accompanying studies have been with Gyorgy Sandor, Martin Katz, Allen Rogers and Gary Steigerwalt. Ms. Kohane has served as vocal coach and diction instructor at The Hartt School, Boston University, and New England Conservatory, and as head vocal coach at B.U.'s Tanglewood Institute. She has been the accompanist for Boston Concert Opera, Chorus Pro Musica, and the Zamir Chorale, and has accompanied under Leonard Slatkin, Lukas Foss and Peter Sellars. An active collaborative pianist, Ms. Kohane has performed in concerts and radio broadcasts throughout the Northeast, Midwest and Iceland. She is Principal Keyboardist for the Bridgeport Symphony, under the direction of Gustav Meier, and a founding member of the Guastavino Trio. Ms Kohane also serves on the board of the Lotte Lehman Foundation.

Richard Lalli

Website: http://www.yale.edu/yalemus/people/faculty.html#Lalli

Richard Lalli is Professor of Music (Adjunct) at Yale University, where he is the Artistic Director of the Yale Baroque Opera Project and the conductor of the Yale Collegium Musicum. At Yale he also coordinates the Shen Musical Theater Curriculum, a program he has developed over the past four years that brings professionals in musical theater composition, lyric- and book-writing, and performance to teach in the Music and Theater Studies Departments, as well as in the Yale School of Drama.

Mr. Lalli appears around the world as a singer. He has given solo recitals at Wigmore Hall, the Spoleto Festival USA, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Merkin and Weill Halls in New York, Salle Cortot, and the United States Embassy in Paris. He has been particularly active in the performance of chamber music, appearing with the Boston Camerata, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Folger Consort, and the new-music ensemble Sequitur. During the coming season he tours with Peter Serkin and the Brentano String Quartet.

In recent seasons Lalli has premiered works of countless American composers, including Richard Pearson Thomas, Daron Hagen, and most recently, Ned Rorem. His recording of Yehudi Wyner's The Mirror was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005.

With pianist Gary Chapman, Lalli has recorded four discs of popular songs. The two have appeared at festivals around the world, and also in intimate spaces such as the Players’ Club, the Carlyle, the Park Plaza, and The Whitney Museum of American Art.

Mr. Lalli was awarded the Sidonie Mishimin Clauss Prize in 2007 for excellence in teaching in the Humanities at Yale University, and has recently been named the eleventh Master of Jonathan Edwards College at Yale University.

William Rhoads

Website: www.brhoadsandassociates.com

Currently Director of Marketing and Communications for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Mr. Rhoads is President and Managing Director of Bill Rhoads and Associates, New York, NY, which has represented the interests of Frank Zappa, Michael Torke, John Zorn, Daron Hagen, Ornette Coleman, Arabesque Records, ECS Music Publishers, and C.F. Peters, along with a host of other prominent artists and firms in the music industry. Prior to opening his own firm, Mr. Rhoads was Director of the Concert Music Division for Carl Fischer, LLC, New York, NY.

He has been active as board member of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers, founder/director of the Ear and Now and 99¢ Concert Series', and co-director of Composers Concordance in New York City. In addition, Mr. Rhoads served the music industry as Board Member for CRI (Composers Recordings, Inc.), and the MPA (Music Publishers Association), as Honorary Advisory Board Member for The Women's Philharmonic, and as panel member, speaker and judge on numerous committees for organizations serving the needs of composers, educators, and performers, including ASCAP, MENC, and the American Symphony Orchestra League.

An accomplished composer, Mr. Rhoads has an extensive background in audio engineering, arranging, composition (private studies with Stephen Dembski, John Corigliano, George Rochberg, and John Harbison), and philosophy and continues to be active as a composer and concert producer in the New York area.

Ned Rorem

Website: www.nedrorem.com

Words and music are inextricably linked for Ned Rorem. Time Magazine has called him "the world's best composer of art songs," yet his musical and literary ventures extend far beyond this specialized field. Rorem has composed three symphonies, four piano concertos and an array of other orchestral works, music for numerous combinations of chamber forces, six operas, choral works of every description, ballets and other music for the theater, and literally hundreds of songs and cycles. He is the author of fourteen books, including five volumes of diaries and collections of lectures and criticism.

Rorem was born in Richmond, Indiana on October 23, 1923, the son of Rufus Rorem, the medical economist whose work led to the creation of Blue Cross. As a child he moved to Chicago with his family; by the age of ten his piano teacher had introduced him to Debussy and Ravel, an experience which "changed my life forever," according to the composer. At seventeen he entered the Music School of Northwestern University, two years later receiving a scholarship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He studied composition under Bernard Wagenaar at Juilliard, taking his B.A. in 1946 and his M.A. degree (along with the $1,000 George Gershwin Memorial Prize in composition) in 1948. In New York he worked as Virgil Thomson's copyist in return for $20 a week and orchestration lessons. He studied on fellowship at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood in the summers of 1946 and 1947; in 1948 his song The Lordly Hudson was voted the best published song of that year by the Music Library Association.

Rorem's orchestral scores of the past decade include Piano Concerto for Left Hand and Orchestra (1991), premiered by soloist Gary Graffman with André Previn conducting the Symphony Orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music; and Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra (1993), commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in honor of its 150th anniversary season. Kurt Masur conducted the premiere, with Tom Stacy as the soloist. His most recent orchestral work is a Double Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra commissioned by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra; Raymond Leppard conducted longtime Rorem advocates Jaime Laredo (violin) and Sharon Robinson (cello) in the work's premiere in October 1998. One week after the work's debut in Indianapolis, Leppard and his soloists traveled to the U.K. to perform the concerto with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Ned Rorem turned 75 on October 23, 1998; leading the birthday-year celebrations was the premiere of his evening-length song cycle for four singers and piano, Evidence of Things Not Seen. Consisting of 36 songs, the three-part cycle represents Rorem's magnum opus in the medium. The New York Festival of Song premiered the cycle at Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall in January 1998, followed by a performance in April at the Library of Congress. New York magazine called Evidence of Things Not Seen "one of the musically richest, most exquisitely fashioned, most voice-friendly collections of songs I have ever heard by any American composer;" Chamber Music magazine deemed it "a masterpiece."

Other Entertainment, Rorem's latest book, is a collection of essays and short reminiscences, issued by Simon and Schuster in 1996. In addition, Da Capo has recently issued The Paris Diary and The New York Diary in a single paperback volume. Rorem has said: "My music is a diary no less compromising than my prose. A diary nevertheless differs from a musical composition in that it depicts the moment, the writer's present mood which, were it inscribed an hour later, could emerge quite otherwise. I don't believe that composers notate their moods, they don't tell the music where to go - it leads them....Why do I write music? Because I want to hear it - it's simple as that. Others may have more talent, more sense of duty. But I compose just from necessity, and no one else is making what I need."

Mr. Rorem is the recipient of the Lehmann Foundation's 2003 World of Song Award.

Su Lian Tan

Su Lian Tan is a composer and flutist of Chinese-Malaysian descent. Forthcoming commissions include a piece for Christine Schadeberg and piano trio. Recent commissions include a work for the Takacs String Quartet (Life in Wayang), a song cycle written in collaboration with author Jamaica Kincaid for the bicentennial celebrations of Middlebury College (Jamaica's Songs), a work for the Genkin Philharmonic, and performances and solo appearances with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Other premieres and concerts include commissioned works for the Da Capo Chamber Players (Invention and Sinfonia), the New Juilliard Ensemble at Lincoln Center (Couture, a fashion show for mixed ensemble), the Meridian Arts Ensemble, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and The Core Ensemble. Moo Shu Rap Wrap, written for the Meridian Arts Ensemble, was performed on their tours throughout the U.S., Europe, and South America and recorded. Ms. Tan has performed with them in Amsterdam, The Hague, Germany, and at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Other compositions have been premiered or performed by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Krijoso Trio, Mosaic, members of the San Francisco Symphony, members of the International Women's Brass Conference, Cassatt Quartet, Chicago Ensemble, Perpetuum Mobile Ensemble, Juilliard Ensemble, ALEA III, Amici Musici, Princeton Chamber Ensemble, and Princeton University Orchestra. Her work has been featured numerous times at Summergarden at MOMA, on the Focus! Festival (1996), the Wet Ink Concert Series, and many times at Lincoln Center and Merkin Hall.

She has garnered numerous distinctions, including an ASCAP award, Meet the Composer grant, Irving Berlin Scholarship award, and several residency fellowships at the Yaddo and McDowell colonies. She has been Composer-in-Residence at Bennington College, the Composer's Forum of the East, the Warebrook Festival, and named Vermont Composer of the Year. Other awards include a Naumburg Fellowship Award and a Vermont Music Teachers Association Award. Two Scenes was a prize-winner of the International Women's Brass Conference composition competition. She was a Finalist in the Kucyna International Competition and the International Composer's Competition (NEM). She has appeared as a convocation speaker and lecturer at the School of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder, lecturer at Darmouth College and SUNY Fredonia, and given master classes at Bard College and SUNY Fredonia. In addition, she has been part of numerous successful pre-concert lectures and panels, including a presentation on Bach's Art of the Fugue with the Brentano String Quartet.

As Associate Professor and former Chairman of the Music Department at Middlebury College, her contributions have taken many forms. In addition to teaching all levels of composition she has continued and greatly expanded the visiting performing artist residency program to include larger and recognized ensembles (Takacs String Quartet, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Brentano String Quartet, the Core Ensemble, Mosaic) and greatly increased their involvement with students. She regularly coaches, conducts, and coordinates numerous student and professional concerts (including operas) and inter-departmental enterprises. She has produced the Festivals of the Human Voice I and II, the Middlebury Chamber Soloist series, and advises the Performing Arts Series. She has also been curator of panels and concerts for the Clifford Symposium (featuring keynote speaker Edward Albee).

As a flutist, Ms. Tan's gifts were recognized early on. At age 14, she was recording for radio and television. At 17, she became both a Fellow and Licentiate of the Trinity College, London. Her performances have been broadcast on WXQR Radio (New York) and Morning Pro Musica, and she has performed at Lincoln Center with the Perpetuum Mobile, Juilliard ensembles, and at Princeton University. She has been a soloist with orchestras both here and abroad, including an eleven-performance tour with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra in her work, Autumn Lute Song. She has had numerous pieces written for her, including works by Daron Hagen and Allen Shawn's Song of the Tango Bird, the latter which she both premiered and recorded for the Northeastern label, and produced a CD of piano music for the Albany label. She has appeared at the SEAMUS National Conference and performs regularly with the Middlebury Chamber Soloists. A recent recital at Middlebury included premieres of works by Chris Molina and Tom Geogehan.

Ms. Tan received her extensive musical training at Princeton University, the Juilliard School, and Bennington College where she studied with Vincent Persichetti, Milton Babbitt, Bernard Rands, Lou Calabro, and James Randall. She is Associate Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Music Department at Middlebury College. Moo Shu Wrap-Rap, recorded by the Meridian Arts Ensemble for their CD Ear Mind I, is released by Channel Records. Her music is published by the Theodore Presser, Co.

Damien Top

After studying Literature and Philosophy in Lille and graduating in Germanic Studies at the University of Paris, Damien Top studied Singing and Dramatic Art at the Conservatoire in Lille. Later, at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, he joined the classes of Nicole Broissin (Atelier Lyrique-Opérette) and Corazza (Vocal Technique), Isabelle Aboulker (Musical Theory), and studied with Galina Vischnievskaya, Jean-Christophe Benoit, and Jacques Pottier (Melbourne University).

His dual training as a singer and an actor enables him to appear in opera, operetta, and sacred works, as well as perform the difficult repertoire of French mélodie — his favorite genre. He has given recitals at Flaneries Musicales de Reims for the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, Musicales en Valois, Festival des Grands Crus de Bourgogne, Festival de la Mélodie Française de Toulouse, etc. As a renowned interpreter of French song, Damien Top frequently gives recitals abroad, including performances in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Macedonia, New Zealand, and the United States. In Diapason, critic Jean Roy wrote of Top, "one will not reproach him error of taste."

In 1993, he was engaged by the Opera de Paris-Bastille to sing in a new production of Benvenuto Cellini by Berlioz. In 2000, he performed in Heloise and Abelard by Australian composer Peter Tahourdin, toured France and Poland with Mozart's Requiem, sung at the Bitola International Festival and gave a recital of operatic arias with the Hawaii Youth Symphony Orchestra. In 2002, Damien Top took part at "Musica in Mostre" a festival of contemporary music in Torino, sang and conducted the cantata L'oiseau a vu tout cela by Sauguet at the Institut de France-Académie Française for the celebration of the Centenary of Vercors. In 2006, he sang in Torino, Palermo, Paris, Bailleul, Cassel, Tournus, Honolulu, Sherbrooke, etc.

Damien Top has studied Analysis, Harmony and the History of Music at the Paris Conservatoire with Michel Qu´val. Under the guidance of Sergiu Celibidache, he began research into musical aesthetics and attended seminars in the phenomenology of music. With these two master teachers, he was introduced to orchestral conducting. He has conducted the Orchestre du Festival Roussel, Joseph Jongen Ensemble, Czech Chamber Soloists, and Prague Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, among others. In his programs, he particularly focuses on the music of our time (Roussel, d'Indy, Delvincourt, Enesco, Jersild, Martinet, Sandagerdi, Martinu, Looten, Macha, Ratovondrahety, Tahourdin, etc.).

Son of the poet Andrée Brunin, Damien Top has given poetry recitals (Alliance Française de Sydney, Université de Melbourne, Société d'Honneur Pi-Delta-Phi d'Hawaii, Wo International Center, etc.) He explores a wide range of the repertoire and introduces the audience to the poetry of our time (Anthologie de la poesie française, Poetes féminins contemporains, Centenaire Verlaine,etc.)

Biographical and musicological work on Albert Roussel has been a particular feature of Damien Top's research and in 1989, in the composer's birthplace, he devoted an entire recital to Roussel's mélodies. His biography of Albert Roussel was published in 2000 by Editions Seguier and he has also written full length studies on Sergei Rachmaninov and Rene de Castera, for which he was awarded the Prix du Salon du Livre d’Hossegor. Consequently, he is frequently invited to speak on radio and television (France Musique, France Culture, Hawaii Public Radio, Radio Suisse Romande, FR3, NPS Dutch TV); to present papers on French music at international conferences and to give masterclasses in French art song at University of Melbourne, Monash University, La Trobe University, University of Performing Arts at Wollongong, Wellington University, James Maddison University, Université de Sherbrooke, Université de Montreal.

In response to his fine talents as a singer, several composers have written music especially for him: Aboulker, Carr, Choveaux, Cox, Dunleavy, Feron, Flament, Joly, Pinchard, Surianu, Tahourdin, Trumble, Werder, and Jacques Chailley who considers "l'art de Damien Top est exemplaire." Among others, Top recorded Massenet song's cycles (BNL), De Coussemaker's romances (RCP), Goue’s songs (Recital)

Damien Top writes the musical chronic in the monthly "Politique Magazine." Member of the SACEM, his compositions have been played in France, Belgium, Italy, United States. Involved in many organizations, he is at the head of the "Centre International Albert-Roussel" which he founded in 1992 and the director of the "Albert-Roussel International Festival."

In 2002 Damien Top was awarded with the "Prix Charles Oulmont — Fondation de France" for his outstanding career.

Craig Urquhart

Website: www.craigurquhart.com

Composer/pianist Craig Urquhart had the fortune to work as an assistant to the man whom he credits with inspiring his entire musical career, Maestro Leonard Bernstein. Urquhart's love of the piano began at age six, when he began taking piano lessons as a child growing up in Michigan, however he credits Bernstein's CBS series The Young People's Concerts with The New York Philharmonic as "literally educating a whole generation of kids about music, including myself."

His early exposure gave the Michigan child an obsession with music that led him to explore the piano. He absorbed the music of Bach, Chopin and Schubert as well as the contemporary voices of the day: Joni Mitchell, Brian Eno, and Laura Nyro, before entering the University of Michigan as a composition major.

Moving to New York City after receiving his Master's in Composition from the University of Michigan, Urquhart met Leonard Bernstein in the late 70's, and the two became acquainted after Urquhart left some of his own music with Bernstein's Manhattan doorman. Urquhart gained inspiration at a time when he had become disillusioned with some of the atonal work he had been writing. Bernstein asked him to become his musical assistant in 1985. The professional relationship continued until Bernstein's death in 1990, which led Urquhart to start composing his first albums, utilizing a more lyrical approach than what he had attempted before his friendship with Bernstein.

Putting together several discs through the 90's, it was 1994's powerful Epitaphs and Portraits that brought him the most attention with its compassionate AIDS theme. Urquhart took the second half of the decade to work on musical projects outside of recording, but by 2002 he was back in the studio recording Evocation. His fifth and most recent album, Streamwalker, premiered in 2004 to critical acclaim.

A well-known composer of American classical art songs, including musical settings of poems by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Urquhart has had his songs performed and recorded by Thomas Hampson, Michael Slattery, Lauren Wagner and other artists.

"I believe that the art song is one of the most rewarding forms of musical and literary expression. The encouragement of art song composition is most important for our musical future and heritage," Urquhart says.

Urquhart served for eight years as a member of the music faculty at the Harlem School of the Arts, and was actor Tom Hulce's musical coach for the Academy Award winning film Amadeus. He also worked for Belwin Mills and C.F. Peters music publishing companies. He served on the Board of Directors of the momentum AIDS Project and is a voting member of The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (Grammy Awards).

Urquhart has been actively involved in a wide array of social and environmental causes over the years, performing twice at the United Nations for National AIDS Awareness Day and Earth Day, as well as at benefit concerts for such organizations as the Tidewater AIDS Taskforce of Norfolk, Virginia, Momentum AIDS Project in New York and Bread and Roses AIDS hospice in Connecticut. His "The Wonder of Miracles" was choreographed by the Turtle's Dance Company for a memorial concert at the Cathedral St. John the Divine.

Brian Zeger

Past-Vice President
Website: www.brianzeger.com

Pianist Brian Zeger has built an important career not only as a solo pianist, but also as an ensemble performer par excellence, artistic administrator and educator. Recently he has recorded a series of radio pieces called "Speaking of Song" which are being broadcast. On his website (www.brianzeger.com) one can find all the current information about Brian's concerts, masterclasses and broadcasts, as well as his up-to-date biography and press materials. Check the website if you'd like to tune to one of his Metropolitan Opera intermission features or quizzes or attend a concert!

Mr. Zeger has appeared in distinguished concert venues all over the United States and Europe, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York, London's Barbican Centre, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Palau de la Musica and Liceu in Barcelona and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Mr. Zeger devotes a great deal of attention to the chamber and song repertoire, collaborating with such artists as violinist Itzhak Perlman, flutist James Galway, actress Claire Bloom, and song recitalists Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Kathleen Battle and Arleen Auger.

Engagements for the 2003-2004 season included recitals in Europe and America with soprano Deborah Voigt, and mezzo-sopranos Susan Graham and Joyce DiDonato. Mr. Zeger was the pianist for Voigt's Carnegie Hall debut. Season highlights also include a concerto appearance with the Boston Pops in Boston's Symphony Hall, a White House appearance with Susan Graham and a concert with the New York Philharmonic Chamber Ensembles. From 1993-2000 he was the artistic director of the Cape and Islands Chamber Music Festival, headquartered on Cape Cod and now in its twenty-fourth season. His performances at the festival have included collaborations with the Borromeo and Brentano Quartets as well as Bernard Greenhouse, Glenn Dicterow, Eugene Drucker and Paula Robison. He has also been a regular guest at many other summer festivals including Aspen, Ravinia, Caramoor, Aldeburgh, and Santa Fe. He has been on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, the Chautauqua Institute and the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival

Born in upstate New York, Mr. Zeger is now a resident of Manhattan. He holds a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Harvard College, a master's degree from The Juilliard School and a doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music. He is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School in the Accompanying and Vocal Arts Departments as well as the Mannes College of Music. He has also taught at the Peabody Conservatory and The Guildhall School of Music in London. His own teachers have included Morris Borenstein, Sascha Gorodnitzki and Nina Svetlanova.

Some of his critical essays and other writings have appeared in Opera News, The Yale Review and Chamber Music magazine. He has appeared frequently on the ChevronTexaco Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts both on the opera quiz and as intermission host and performer. He has adjudicated the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Concert Artists Guild auditions and the Joy of Singing competition. His recordings may be heard on the New World and Naxos record labels.